


Shadows of the Past

by Namarie



Series: Into the Light [2]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Magical Creatures, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, lyatt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-05-19 17:57:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14878569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namarie/pseuds/Namarie
Summary: Rittenhouse might be down, but they're not out. Not yet. Not when they have one final trump card to play.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my story “Into the Light”. It will probably make a lot more sense if you read that first.

~~  
Looking back after the fact, Lucy still had a hard time deciding which part was the worst. She had no trouble remembering the shock, pain, and fear that had resulted from that fateful reunion, but there had been so many negative immediate consequences that it was hard to focus on one.

She and Wyatt had just gotten back from another trip in the Lifeboat, finishing up more of the post-Rittenhouse-takedown cleanup. That process was taking longer than they had all expected. Though there had been no sightings, Lucy knew she wasn't the only one who was afraid this was because of Emma somehow. The woman had managed to escape from custody on the way to the black site she was supposed to be transferred to. She hadn't stolen the Mothership again (it was still being kept hidden somewhere, under the highest level of security possible while Agent Christopher tried to get the government to agree that it should be destroyed). That didn't mean she wasn't dangerous, though.

Wyatt and Lucy hurried back to Denise and Michelle's to pick up Katie – as always, with deep relief upon finding that nothing they had done in the past had somehow erased her from existence or hurt her in any way. (So far, the very complex, highly involved series of wards and spells Lucy had put together to protect their family against such a risk seemed to be holding.) That afternoon when they got back to their daughter, she was still the same happy, bubbly, healthy one-year-old as she was when they had left her to go back to 1960.

It was only when they got back to their apartment building that things went south, extremely quickly. Lucy had reached into the car to pull out the diaper bag while Wyatt held Katie and talked to her. She turned around, shut the door – and saw the blonde woman coming toward them just a second before Wyatt did.

His eyes widened and he froze. The woman froze as well, staring from him, to Katie, to Lucy. Her jaw dropped.

And so did Wyatt's. Lucy felt a terrible sinking sensation in her stomach even before he swallowed hard and said, “Jessica?”

The other woman – Jessica – seemed at a loss for words. Then she shook her head and cleared her throat. “I don't-- Wyatt, is that _your child_?”

“You...” Wyatt swallowed hard, following her gaze to Katie. For her part, Katie had picked up on the tension radiating from both of her parents and the stranger. She buried her head in Wyatt's shoulder and started to whimper.

Jessica's expression turned from shock to hurt and anger, though it was clear she was doing her best not to lose control. “I don't understand,” she said. “She's got to be, what, a year old?” She met Lucy's eyes more directly now. Her intake of breath was almost a gasp, and it was impossible to ignore the pain in her next words. It was also impossible not to reach the conclusion that Jessica knew Lucy in this timeline – some version of Lucy, anyway. “I thought you two were just friends. Isn't that what you both told me?”

Wyatt took a step backward, stumbling a little. He sucked in a breath of his own, rubbing a hand over Katie's back before casting a desperate glance at Lucy. “Can-- can you take her? I...”

Hastily, Lucy put the diaper bag over her shoulder and reached for her daughter. Katie sniffled but went to her willingly. Meanwhile, Wyatt met her gaze, tried and failed to say something, and then looked back at Jessica. His wife. His first wife, who apparently was alive now, and had at least some expectation that she and Wyatt were still together in some way.

“Well?” said Jessica, crossing her arms. “I'm waiting to hear some explanation – any explanation – that might convince me I'm wrong to go get those divorce papers out of my car right now.”

Divorce papers. Oh, God. This was just getting worse. Wyatt flinched as if he'd been struck across the face. “You-- Jess, you were dead,” was what he choked out after another agonizing few seconds. “Six years... I thought you were dead.”

Lucy winced, tightening her grip on Katie as Jessica raised her eyebrows. “What in the--” Jessica glanced at Katie and modified her tone and word choice. “Wyatt, that makes less than zero sense, but you don't seem like you're drunk.” She looked at Lucy again. “He's not drunk?”

“He's not,” Lucy tried to say, but had to clear her throat before the words came out as anything but a scratchy whisper. “He's really not. I know how it sounds, how this must look...”

Before Jessica could do more than scoff, Wyatt created an extremely effective diversion by taking another gasping breath – this one much more high-pitched and wheezing than before – and then turning chalk-white and collapsing. Neither Lucy nor Jessica got to him in time to prevent him from hitting the sidewalk. Katie burst into loud wails of fear and distress, which meant that Lucy had to stand up and try to comfort her (somehow, even as her own fear skyrocketed). Meanwhile, Jessica knelt down, checked Wyatt for obvious injuries, and touched her fingers to his throat.

“His pulse is racing,” she reported over the sound of Katie's cries. “He's breathing, I think...” She paused, and put her face and hand next to his mouth. “Oh, God. Maybe not.”

“What?” Lucy willed her own legs to keep holding her upright. This was too much. Katie hadn't stopped crying. “We need-- we need to call an ambulance, we need to--”

The other woman nodded, pulling out her cell phone. But just as she was dialing, the Logan family's Homeland Security escort (pared down since Rittenhouse had been so thoroughly beaten, but not removed yet) appeared on the scene. They surrounded the fallen soldier, calling for a stretcher while they made sure Lucy and Katie were safe. “As per Agent Christopher's orders, we'll take your husband to a secure medical facility, ma'am,” said one of the agents. Harrison, Lucy thought his name was. “And you and your daughter as well, but you'll need to be in a separate vehicle.”

Lucy nodded once, even as her heart squeezed. Wyatt hadn't regained consciousness, and there was an oxygen mask over his face now as they moved him into the back of an ambulance that had appeared sometime in the last few minutes. Katie was no longer wailing at the top of her voice, but she was still frightened and unhappy. And as for Jessica...

The woman was standing slightly off to one side, watching everything unfold with a stricken look on her face. Lucy bit her lip. The idea didn't make her happy at all. But she knew, if the situation was reversed... “There's room in the car for her, right?” she asked Agent Harrison, gesturing toward Jessica.

“For the...” His brow creased, and he looked between Jessica and Lucy once before starting again. “For the ex-wife? Does she need to come along?”

It was only fair, since Lucy knew the poor woman had to be completely bewildered, hurting, and lost right now. Though if Lucy tried to think about it at all, she had no idea how both Jessica and Katie could exist together. She shook that off for the moment. “If she wants to,” she answered Harrison.

The agent gave her an odd look, but sent another Homeland guy over to Jessica. And that was how, just seconds later, Lucy, Katie, and Jessica were in the back of a black government SUV, following the ambulance and escorted by at least two other vehicles on the way to this secure site. Katie had calmed down enough to drop off into a light doze in Lucy's arms. Which made this a tiny, tiny bit less awkward.

They were silent for the first mile or so. Agent Christopher called Lucy to confirm that yes, Wyatt had collapsed outside their apartment, yes, she and Katie were fine, and “Wyatt's missing first wife” had turned up and was coming in with them. There had been a long pause after this last item. “All right,” Agent Christopher said finally. “Well, our first priority is figuring out what's wrong with Wyatt and making him better, of course. But I'll be wanting to know more about the rest of this situation once he's stable, if you're up to it.”

“I can tell you what I know when I see you, which isn't much yet,” Lucy replied, keeping her voice low in deference to both her sleeping daughter and to the other woman, sitting one seat away from her in the SUV. There were some theories floating around in the back of her head, but she was too worried about Wyatt to spend any energy considering them right now.

Agent Christopher accepted this without complaint. Then she said, “We're going to figure this out, Lucy.”

Remembering the way Wyatt had gone pale and just – fallen to the ground made Lucy's throat close up. But she cleared it resolutely and said, “I know we will.”

“I'll update Rufus and Jiya, if you're all right with that.”

“Yes.” Lucy wondered what all they knew right now. “Thank you.”

When she had ended the call, she felt Jessica's eyes on her. “What was that about?” the woman asked.

Lucy wished – not for the last time, she guessed – that she knew how much Jessica knew about Wyatt's life in this timeline. “Um, just our, uh, boss,” she said, fumbling to put her phone away without jostling Katie. “Calling to reassure me that we're going to find out what's wrong with Wyatt.”

Jessica sighed and nodded. “So you don't know, either?”

“No,” said Lucy, looking down at her daughter's sweet sleeping face. She could see Wyatt there, more and more as Katie grew – and not just in the bright blue eyes that were currently closed.

“Ah.” Her companion was quiet for a short while, and then said, “Maybe you'll think it sounds crazy, but I was actually kind of hoping that he'd somehow developed a chronic illness in the past three months since I last saw him.” At her raised eyebrow, she laughed once before turning utterly serious. She explained quietly, “Because the other option I saw was that _I_ did this to him. That's what it looked like. And I didn't want that to be true.”

It had looked like that. Lucy couldn't deny it. But she didn't blame Jessica for turning up, however the timeline had been modified so that she was alive. It wasn't her fault. “It wasn't your fault,” Lucy said in a low voice. “Whatever happened to him, it wasn't anything you did.” It was much more likely that it was some kind of unforeseen consequence of Lucy's spells to prevent Katie from being wiped from existence, actually. Which was not comforting at all.

“Thanks for saying that,” said Jessica, obviously not convinced.

She cared about him, Lucy thought, biting her lip and turning away. Even in spite of whatever marital trouble she and Wyatt were dealing with in whatever timeline she'd come from, Jessica still cared about him. Probably still loved him. And for all that she and Wyatt had been married now for almost as long as Wyatt and Jessica had been in their original timeline, he obviously still had feelings he'd never really dealt with. Lucy wrapped both arms around Katie, as if to shield herself from the agony of these realizations by holding tighter to the living evidence of her and Wyatt's own love.

“How long have you two been together?” Jessica asked then, her voice cracking slightly. “For real, I mean.”

Lucy shot a glance at her, and then looked away. “There's no way I can answer that without confusing and hurting you more,” she said. “Not because of the reasons you think, although I can only imagine how this must look...”

Sighing, Jessica clasped her hands together in her lap. “Uh huh. Then try to explain.”

“I will,” said Lucy. “As soon as we know more about what's wrong with Wyatt, and as soon as Agent Christopher gives me permission.”

She could feel her staring at her, but the other woman just said, “Fine. But I'm holding you to that.”

“Of course.”

Not long after that, the convoy pulled in through a gate, to a facility that Lucy didn't recognize. She hurried out of the SUV as soon as she could, following Agent Harrison inside while Katie stirred and murmured in her sleep. She was aware Jessica was behind her.

The three of them found themselves outside a hospital room (this place had a medical wing, whatever else it had, apparently) with Wyatt inside. He was surrounded by doctors and nurses – and he still wasn't moving or opening his eyes. The oxygen mask was still over his face, too.

A few seconds later, one of the nurses pulled the blinds shut in the room's windows. Lucy tried not to gasp. That didn't have to mean some sort of disaster. Right?

Somehow, she made it over to the nearest waiting area and sat down. But then of course Katie woke up almost immediately after that – and she was not happy. She did need a diaper change, but a fresh one didn't seem to be enough to soothe her. She didn't want to nurse, and she didn't want to play with any of her toys, either. Only Lucy walking around and holding her kept her from full-on crying. “I know, sweetheart,” Lucy murmured to her, sniffling. “You want your daddy, don't you? Me, too.”

Jessica had remained a silent spectator through most of this. But after Katie had fussed and squirmed in Lucy's arms for at least ten minutes straight, she spoke up. “Um, do you want me to try holding her for a little while? Just so you can have a break.”

Lucy stared at her. That was … a surprisingly gracious offer, considering Katie would have to appear to her to be Wyatt's daughter from a woman with whom he'd been cheating for years. “Okay,” she said, trying for a smile. Of course, from everything she'd learned about Jessica over the years, it wasn't a surprise that Wyatt's first wife would be kind. And wouldn't blame a child for its parents' actions, anyway. “We'll see what Katie thinks about that idea.”

She walked over to Jessica. “You want to go see--” She paused, and then said, “A new friend?”

Jessica smiled as Katie turned a curious though still fretful gaze onto her. “Hi there, little one,” she said. “Can I hold you for a minute?”

At first, between Katie's natural friendliness and Jessica's warm welcome, it seemed like things might go okay. But that didn't last. It was only moments after the little girl was in Jessica's arms that everything went haywire. First, both Katie and Jessica went pale. Then Lucy felt dizzy and nauseated, even as the world seemed to quiver and roil around her. She felt something shove against her anti-timeline-change spells. Katie let out a thin, feeble wail that hurt Lucy to hear, and Jessica trembled violently.

“I-- I think you'd better--” Jessica stammered, holding Katie away from her.

“Here.” Lucy took her back. Katie pressed her face into her mother's neck and shoulder, eerily silent as she shook. Lucy stroked a hand over her wings and back. “I'm sorry, sweetie,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry.” The world had stopped roiling, at least, and her spells were still intact. But that … what had just happened had to have been because of the paradox. The paradox of Katie's existence and Jessica's continued existence, interacting with each other.

There was a shrill alarm sounding from inside Wyatt's room. Lucy clutched Katie to her, trying to breathe. Had the paradox done something to him, too?

But thankfully, the alarm stopped just seconds later. Lucy let out a breath. She glanced over to where Jessica was standing, still a little pale, and saw that same relief on her face.

Lucy thought Jessica would ask about what had just happened, but if she had been planning to do so, that was interrupted by a doctor exiting Wyatt's room. “Mrs. Logan?”

Both of them turned toward him, Lucy with a wince as she saw Jessica's reaction to that. Still, she couldn't worry too much about it right now. “Yes?”

The doctor came closer to her, but not so far away that Jessica wouldn't be able to hear. “I'm Doctor Greenville. Your husband is stable, for the moment,” he said. “His symptoms appear to indicate that he has advanced pneumonia, though the team that brought him in said he hadn't been showing any symptoms at all until his collapse?”

“That's correct,” said Lucy. Pneumonia? What the hell?

“Hmm.” Dr. Greenville frowned. “Well, we'll run tests on the fluid that we're draining out of his lungs, to see if we can narrow down what's causing the infection.”

A stray thought occurred to her, and Lucy wished she'd thought of it before. “But you, um, you know he's fae, right? You're taking that into consideration?”

He nodded. “Yes, that would have been hard not to notice. But we'll definitely make sure the sample is tested for anything magic-related, as well.”

Jessica made a little, strangled sound from where she was standing a yard away, but didn't interrupt. Lucy hid another wince. Right. There was no reason Jessica would know, since Wyatt hadn't known until their accidental trip to the Wild Lands. Lucy cleared her throat. “Can we see him?”

“We had to put him under in order to insert the drains in his lungs,” the doctor said. “But once we've given him a little while to respond to that, then I'll make sure someone comes out to tell you when he's ready for visitors.”

God. There was so much fluid in his lungs that it needed to be drained out. That did not sound good at all – especially since the doctor had all but admitted they didn't really know what was wrong. But there was something at the back of Lucy's mind... Something that said Wyatt's collapse made total sense, but it wouldn't come clear. “All right,” said Lucy, and managed a shaky smile. “Thank you.”

As soon as the doctor had left, Jessica strode forward until she was staring Lucy right in the face. “Okay,” she said, hands on hips, “what the hell is going on here? What was that-- that thing that happened just a few minutes ago, when I held your kid? And what do you mean that Wyatt's fae? He only ever told me that he had a few drops of fae heritage on his mom's side!”

“He hasn't known he's fae for that long,” Lucy hedged. “I mean, neither have I, for that matter.”

Jessica gave her a closer look. “What?”

“I've only known I'm an elf for a couple of years now,” she explained. Katie was watching this exchange with interest.

The other woman's eyes narrowed, and then widened. “Whoa. You are, aren't you?” Then she shook her head, stepping away again. “This is insane. This is all totally crazy.”

Lucy fought back the urge to apologize again. She doubted it would be helpful right now. Instead, she went on, “But, um, Wyatt's a Brightstar. I don't know if you've heard of them, since they're really rare. I hadn't.”

She stared at her again. “Nope.” When Lucy opened her mouth to explain, she held up a hand, taking out her phone with the other one. “I'll-- I'll look it up myself. Thanks.”

Nodding once, Lucy tried not to let that rejection sting at all. As if the other woman was anything but resentful of her. How could she not be?

After a little while of reading, Jessica let out an exclamation and raised her eyes to Lucy's. “Seriously? _Wyatt_ is one of these?”

“Yeah.” She tried not to sound defensive, but the woman's incredulity was grating on her. She didn't think Jessica's disbelief only stemmed from trying to imagine a creature like a Brightstar, or it wouldn't have bothered her as much. When Lucy had first learned about what a Brightstar was, she'd thought the description fit Wyatt perfectly – but it sure seemed like that wasn't the case for Jessica. Who by all rights should know him even better in this timeline, if they'd been married for the past six years.

“That...” Jessica shook her head, glancing toward the room where her husband lay (still hidden from view behind the closed blinds). “That can't be the case. Not the Wyatt I've known. I mean, some of what I read sounds like him – definitely sounds like him – but the rest...”

She wanted to ask what didn't fit – but she also didn't want to know. Alternate timeline Wyatt was clearly very different from her own Wyatt, and she couldn't think of any reason to learn more about this other version. Instead, she just wordlessly lifted up the back of Katie's shirt, so that the little girl's folded wings were visible for long enough for Jessica to see. Whether it was because of the paradox interaction or what, Katie was still pretty calm and just wanted to be in Lucy's arms, so she didn't protest.

Taking a sharp breath, Jessica stared for as long as Lucy showed her. Then she swallowed hard and looked away. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, I guess I have to believe you.” Her voice hardened, though she wasn't looking at Lucy when she added, “But if Brightstars are supposed to be all pure of heart and willing to fight for what's right in any circumstance, then I'm even more confused than I was before.”

Divorce. She had said something about having divorce papers ready for Wyatt to sign. Lucy sighed. The poor woman needed to know at least some of what was going on here, before she actually started to question her own sanity. “Let me-- I'm going to call Agent Christopher,” she said. “See if she'll clear me to answer some of your questions. I don't think it's fair to make you wait.”

Jessica looked surprised but pleased. “Okay. Um. Thanks.”

When Lucy had stepped away and explained some of the situation to Agent Christopher, the agent sighed loudly. “Wow. This is much more complicated than I'd thought. Are you saying you believe your protective spells on Katie have somehow led to a paradox? That Jessica isn't supposed to be alive?”

“Was she alive in the timeline you're aware of?” Lucy bit her lip.

“Yes, but...” Now she sounded baffled. “But when I try to think about how Wyatt's situation with Jessica even made sense, with you and with Katie, it's like there's nothing there. No details.”

That was downright disturbing. Lucy couldn't even begin to imagine how disturbing it must be to Agent Christopher herself. “That must be because of the paradox, then. It's … time, or whatever, trying to put two conflicting timelines together but not really succeeding.”

“And do you think this could be part of the reason why Wyatt is ill?”

“I guess. It can't be a coincidence.” Lucy cleared her throat. “Anyway, do I have your permission to try to explain any of this to Jessica?”

Agent Christopher sighed again. “I suppose, but Lucy, do you expect her to believe you? Time travel, time paradoxes... It's a lot to try to comprehend, even for those of us who live it in our day-to-day lives.”

“I know.” Lucy nodded, as if the woman could see. “I'll give it a shot, anyway. There's nothing else for us to do while we wait for Wyatt to be stable enough to have visitors.”

Her voice softened as she said, “Understood. I'll bring Rufus and Jiya by in a little while, if he's okay to see us. And please do keep me posted if his condition changes.”

If it worsens, Lucy thought, tightening her grip around the phone. “I will.”

Before she could marshal her thoughts to talk to Jessica about the impossibilities that would (maybe) explain their current situation, Katie made it known urgently that she was hungry. There was no way she was going to breastfeed her daughter while talking to her husband's formerly dead wife, so she went over to the far corner of the waiting area instead.

Once Katie was done eating, and once Lucy had covered herself up again, she realized how hungry she herself was. She rummaged around in her purse with her one free hand and pulled out half a granola bar in its wrapper. “Great,” she muttered. “Sure. That'll definitely be enough.”

From behind her, she heard someone clearing their throat. “Excuse me, ma'am? Would you like something from the canteen?”

She turned around. It was one of the other Homeland Security agents – her name was Reyes, Lucy thought. “That-- that would be wonderful, thank you,” said Lucy with what she hoped was a passable smile. “Anything not too heavy sounds good.”

Lucy let Katie crawl around across the unoccupied seats in the waiting area while she ate her yogurt, half granola bar, and some packaged apple slices. It wasn't really a meal, but despite her hunger Lucy knew that eating much more would be problematic for her stomach right now. She was too anxious and keyed-up. Meanwhile, at least she could keep Katie from falling off the chairs with a simple magical barrier.

“How are you doing that?” Jessica asked, coming closer just in time to see Katie put her hands out and touch nothing visible. “I mean, keeping her up there like that?”

Oh. Right. Jessica wouldn't have any reason to know that, either. “It turns out my, um, elvish heritage means I'm also a mage,” she explained. “So … magic, to answer your question.”

Jessica's eyebrows rose. “Huh.” She let her finish her last few apple slices, and then stepped closer – to Lucy, not to Katie. “So is that what happened to me and your kid a little while ago? Something to do with magic?”

“I think so, yes.” She took a deep breath. “Jessica, you remember what Wyatt said to you, right before he collapsed? That he thought you were dead?”

“Yeah.” Jessica sat down, again making sure to keep herself on the other side of Lucy from Katie. “And something about six years.”

Lucy nodded. Here it was. “Well. Um, how long has-- had it been since you last saw him, from your point of view?”

She gave her an odd look but said, “Three months. It was like he'd vanished off the face of the earth for that whole time. But I guess he was--” She stopped talking suddenly, glancing at Katie and away again.

“For him – for us, it had been more than six years,” Lucy said, ignoring the implications of that look as best she could. “I'd never met you before today. And that's because you were murdered more than six years ago. In our timeline.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“He told me the story. You two had an argument, and he drove off and left you.” Lucy paused. It didn't seem like a great idea to delve into the details here – especially since Katie was right there, listening however much she could at this age. “They never found your killer, and he never stopped blaming himself.”

“But … that never happened,” Jessica said. “I'm here, I'm fine.”

Lucy sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. “I used to have a sister, too. But because of the missions Wyatt and our friend Rufus and I have been on, because of one thing we changed, she's been erased from existence. No one but me remembers her. Just like you used to be dead, and now you're not.”

“Missions,” she repeated flatly, and frowned. “I know you two work together, on whatever top secret thing Wyatt's been doing. But how could anything your team does, what, change the past? Change someone else's life so completely?”

Lucy raised a hand. “That's it exactly,” she said. “I know – I _know_ it sounds crazy. But that's what our missions have been about: going back in time to fix something in history, something that someone else is trying to mess up.”

To her total lack of surprise, Jessica was very unconvinced. “Time travel?”

She had taken a breath, preparing herself for another round of explanation that Jessica might or (more likely) might not believe, when Dr. Greenville came out of Wyatt's room. “Pardon the interruption, but Wyatt is ready for visitors now. Though I recommend taking it in shifts to avoid overtaxing him.”

Lucy went over to pick up Katie, who had been reaching up toward one of the pictures on the wall, well out of her reach. She looked at Jessica.

“Go ahead,” the woman said, her expression wry. “I'll wait.”

“Thank you.” Not letting herself second-guess it, Lucy carried Katie toward the door to Wyatt's room. Finally. They could see him.

When Lucy and Katie entered the room, Wyatt's eyes were closed and there was an oxygen line in his nose. His face was pale, though not as white as it had been just before he'd stopped breathing. But she could hear every inhale and exhale as it wheezed and crackled in and out of his lungs, and he was so still. There was an IV line in his left arm.

“Wyatt?” she whispered, sitting down in the chair next to his bed. Katie reached out her hands toward him. “Da!” she said, not quite a shout but pretty loud.

Wyatt turned his head toward them and cracked open his eyes. “Hey,” he rasped, swallowing and opening his eyes wider. “You're here.”

“Of course we're here,” said Lucy leaning closer so that Katie could grab her father's hand. “Where else would we be?”

He smiled, wrapping his fingers around Katie's tiny hand. Then his smile faded and his eyes squeezed shut. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“Sorry for what?” She put her own hand over his and their daughter's.

“I don't...” He paused to take a wheezing breath. “I don't know … what to do. How to fix this. Now that … Jessica is here.”

She blinked. His eyes were open again now, and the pain in them was breathtaking. “I'm not expecting you to have some simple solution to this, Wyatt,” she told him, scooting the chair closer so she could meet his gaze more easily. “It's a mess – but it's not your fault.”

“But you … asked me once … what I'd do if this happened,” he insisted. “And I still … don't know.”

She remembered that conversation. It was true that he hadn't come up with a solution back then, either – but his promise that he had chosen her was no less true for that fact. “I'm not worried about you fixing this right now,” she said into the brief pause. Katie seemed content to play with his hand right now, sitting on the bed next to his arm. “What I'm focusing on right now is you getting better. That's the most important thing.”

His forehead creased and he glanced around the room, as if he'd just noticed the state he was in. Then he shook his head once and lay back against the pillow. “Need to figure a way out,” he mumbled, eyes falling shut.

“Just get some rest for now,” Lucy said, stroking his forehead. “We can figure this out together.”

He didn't reply. She would have been more reassured by him falling back to sleep if it weren't for the continued wheezes each of his breaths made.

She and Katie must have dropped off into a doze for a little while as well. A gentle knock on the door brought them all awake. Jessica was standing there, her expression hard to read. “Can I have a turn?” she asked blandly.

“Yeah, of course,” Lucy said, hurrying to stand up. Katie didn't protest much beyond one brief whimper this time.

“Jess,” Wyatt wheezed, as the other woman passed Lucy on the way to his bed. His eyes were wide, amazed, and stricken. “It's really you. Isn't it?”

“Yes, it's me,” she said, sitting down in the chair Lucy had been occupying. “I'm here, and I'm – confused, and trying not to be hurt by all of this, but mostly I'm worried about you.”

Lucy wasn't trying to linger so that she could eavesdrop. She really wasn't. But Wyatt didn't seem to want to wait until she was out of the room.

“I'm sorry,” he told Jessica. “This isn't... This shouldn't have... I don't know how … to fix it.”

“And of course you're worrying about how to fix it right now.” She sounded wryly affectionate, at least.

Before Jessica could say anything else, Wyatt started to cough. And cough, and cough. His attempts to inhale between each bout quickly got more and more desperate-sounding, and then--

“We need help in here!” Jessica was shouting, while Lucy stared in horror at the blood that now spattered her husband's face and the front of his hospital gown and sheet. He seemed to still be conscious, but only barely. Doctors were rushing toward the room, which was now too crowded for everyone in it.

~  
Lucy paced back and forth with a very upset Katie, trying not to keep looking at the room that was now once again full of doctors working on Wyatt. Trying to stabilize him, after he'd started coughing up blood. She wasn't a medical expert, but she didn't have to be to know that was the opposite of an improvement.

This couldn't be happening. That was the thought that kept going through her mind over and over, and it was apt for so many reasons. Wyatt didn't get sick. He was healthy and strong, in annoyingly perfect shape. (Okay, it wasn't actually annoying most of the time, if she were honest.) In fact, the last time she'd seen him sick was...

“Oh, my God,” Lucy gasped. Realization was like a shock of cold water dousing her. Of course. Why hadn't she figured this out sooner – or right away? He had even tried to tell her himself: he'd been trying desperately to “figure a way out” ever since this happened. Because he was _trapped_.

She walked toward Wyatt's door, and then stopped. Telling his doctors what was really wrong wouldn't help right now. Would it? He needed to be stable before anyone would even have a moment to listen to her. She forced herself not to squeeze Katie too tightly in her arms. Every second she delayed was another second of leaving Wyatt in his trap. But maybe her protective spell...

She concentrated, and felt the anti-claustrophobia spell that she'd first put on him so long ago return to full strength. It wasn't a solution. It didn't solve the underlying issue. Still, she could hope...

And not too long after that (though it still felt excruciatingly long, it was probably just one or two minutes), Dr. Greenville came back out, smiling when he saw her. Jessica hurried over as well. “He's stable – and doing better than before this attack, somehow. His lungs sound clearer.” Then his expression got more serious. “But I'm not going to deny that the way his symptoms progressed prior to this upswing was concerning. We still don't know the underlying cause, and so if it happens again--”

“I think I do know the cause,” Lucy put in. She glanced at Jessica, but then forced herself to look away. “Although that doesn't mean I know how to help him recover fully.”

“All right,” said Dr. Greenville. “I'm listening.”

Lucy sighed. “How much do you know about the work Wyatt does, Doctor?”

“Not very much, I'm afraid,” the man said with a little shrug. “It's all need to know, and I don't – or at least, I haven't yet.”

That complicated things. She'd been given permission to try to explain the situation to Jessica, but not to this guy. She tried to think. “Okay. In that case, um, that makes it a little harder, but let me try to get my point across without too many details. The main thing is, Brightstars – that's what Wyatt is – don't do well in traps. Or small spaces. Their claustrophobia isn't just a mental thing, though. It--” Her voice died, just for a second, as she saw in her mind's eye an image of him starting to cough up blood. She cleared her throat in irritation. That was not useful right now. “It can be fatal if they aren't freed. And Wyatt is in a, um, an unusual kind of trap right now that's no less real for its oddness.”

Dr. Greenville's eyebrows had risen throughout this explanation. “What kind of trap?”

Lucy found herself staring at the floor next to and behind the doctor, just so she could totally avoid looking to her right – where Jessica was. “That's. Uh.”

“Oh my God,” said Jessica then, before Lucy could try to come up with something coherent. “Oh my God!” When Lucy finally looked up, the woman had her hands over her mouth, and now she looked ill. “But I-- I never meant...” And then she took off running, in the direction of the bathroom.

The doctor watched her for a few seconds, and then turned back to Lucy with an expression of concern and dawning understanding. “Something to do with the situation between him and you two?”

Miserable, Lucy nodded. “He-- Wyatt and I both thought she was dead. But she isn't. Obviously.”

Dr. Greenville let out a breath. “Wow. I guess that would be a trap, wouldn't it?”

Tears were threatening now, but Lucy refused to let them fall. If she started, she knew she wasn't going to be able to stop, and that wouldn't be fair to Katie who needed her mother functioning. “Yeah,” she said shakily.

There wasn't a real resolution to that conversation, strangely enough. A few minutes after the doctor left, Jessica came back out of the hall leading to the bathroom. Her face was still pale, but her eyes were hard. “You said this wasn't my fault, when we were on the way here,” she said, keeping her voice low with obvious effort. “But now you're saying it is? Now me showing up is literally killing him?”

“No, that's not what I meant!”

“Well, what else could you possibly have meant?!”

Before Lucy could try to come up with what she could possibly say here, the two of them were interrupted by another voice. “Is everything all right here? Lucy?”

Katie gave a glad shriek, reaching over Lucy's shoulder toward Denise Christopher as she strode over to join them. Lucy let out a relieved sigh. She really needed-- well, reinforcements, she supposed. “Hi. It's--” She trailed off and shook her head. “You know what? No, it's not really all right. Wyatt is in serious condition, and I don't know how to fix it, even though I know why it's happening.” She glanced at Jessica, and then back at Agent Christopher before going on, “So, to be honest, if you wouldn't mind taking a shift to explain to Jessica here a little more about the work Wyatt and I, and Rufus, have been doing for the past several years, that would be wonderful. I, meanwhile, will find a quiet room somewhere and try to figure this out while my daughter gets some uninterrupted sleep.” She took a deep breath. “If that's all right with everyone, that is.”

There was a brief pause. Both other women were looking at her with raised eyebrows, but Agent Christopher said, “Of course, Lucy. Take a break. Ask one of my agents where the best place would be for you two to get some rest. I'll fill in some blanks for, ah, Jessica while you do that. And we'll be sure to find you if there are any updates on Wyatt's condition.”

“Thank you.” Lucy couldn't read the expression on Jessica's face at that moment, but she decided she didn't care. It wasn't like the woman was going to be left in the dark now, after all. She would still get her answers.

~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, this is still very much Wyatt/Lucy.

~~  
This had not been what she was expecting, at all. Not what she'd been led to expect, Jessica admitted to herself. When she next saw Emma, she was going to have some words for her. There was no way she was just going to move forward with the plan – as far as Emma had seen fit to explain it – now, after everything that she'd just seen and learned.

Her husband was … not really her husband. Emma had already kind of explained the whole timeline thing, but it was impossible not to believe it now. For one thing, in this timeline he was fae: a freaking Brightstar, of all things. Her Wyatt was a goodhearted, loving man, for sure, but hardly a paragon of virtue (which was literally how Wikipedia described Brightstars). And for another, it was pretty obvious that he and Lucy weren't lying when they said they had believed Jessica herself was dead. Had believed that for a long time – long enough to fall in love and have a kid together. Even though Jessica distinctly remembered talking with Wyatt just a few weeks before Rittenhouse had been all but taken down, three months ago, and at that point Lucy had barely been in the picture.

And then there was the whole paradox thing. Agent Christopher had explained Lucy's theory: that the two conflicting timelines – one with a dead Jessica and one with her alive – were being forced into contact with each other. See, Lucy and Wyatt lived in fear of their little daughter being wiped out of existence, as a side effect of traveling in time. So Lucy had set up a hell of a lot of spells to protect Katie from just that.

Jessica didn't pretend to be a genius. Before today, she'd also had zero personal experience with time travel and all those related issues. But it didn't take an expert to understand why it had been so painful, so _wrong_ feeling, when she'd held Katie for just a few seconds. That was the paradox coming into play. Katie wasn't supposed to exist in the same timeline as a Jessica Logan who hadn't been murdered years ago. Or … the other way of looking at it was that Jessica herself wasn't supposed to still exist in the timeline where Katie had been born.

Emma had to know all of this, too. Emma had to have known about Katie, the innocent little girl whose eyes looked exactly like her father's. And yet, the task Emma had given Jessica was straightforward: sabotage Wyatt's family, in whatever way was most effective. Make sure they weren't available to go on any more missions. Also keep them distracted, while Emma struck against the traitorous Carol Preston to keep her from spilling more secrets.

Jessica sighed as she sat in the waiting area outside Wyatt's room. Well, she had certainly sabotaged things. Just by showing up, she had threatened the lives of Katie _and_ Wyatt. Katie would probably be fine, if Jessica was careful not to touch her again. But Wyatt? Her idiotic, noble husband had seen his formerly dead wife alive again, and promptly dropped to the ground. And now his lungs were filling with fluid. All because he had trapped himself by his desire to fix this, to find some way not to hurt either his current wife, or the wife he'd thought was gone. That was just like him.

Meanwhile, Lucy – who Emma clearly despised, but who Jessica had barely met before, in her timeline – was doing her best to figure out how to solve the problem, too. She had yet to be anything but polite to Jessica: her husband's first wife, who had just marched onto the scene and messed everything up. She hadn't even done more than hint that the solution to Wyatt's illness was obvious. Lucy Preston Logan was some kind of saint, obviously.

Her phone vibrated just then, and Jessica pulled it out of her pocket. A text from Emma, of course.

_Update?_

Jessica snorted. The question mark was almost polite, given that she was supposed to have updated Emma over half an hour ago. But she still took a few seconds to think of what she should say in response. Finally, she settled on, _You didn't tell me about the kid._

A minute later, Emma's response came: _Is this going to be a problem?_

She sighed again and rubbed a hand over her face. _They're very much distracted_ , she texted. _Wyatt's in the hospital._

 _Good_ , was Emma's immediate response. _Keep them that way. Check back in an hour._

Jessica put her phone away, and then stood up. She knew what she had to do. She wasn't going to totally abandon the mission, but she was going to try to minimize the damage she did to this family. It just didn't make sense to her, for what was left of Rittenhouse to so completely set itself against freaking _Brightstars_. She wasn't going to be the cause of their deaths – not when there was another simple solution that didn't require killing them.

Besides, she thought, ignoring the tiny flash of guilt as best as she could, persuading Wyatt to agree to the divorce might save his life, but it wouldn't exactly leave him clear-headed. Not any Wyatt she knew anything about. He'd still be plenty distracted … and that would have to influence Lucy and the rest of the team as well.

~~  
When Lucy and Katie came into his room again, Wyatt was glad he felt more awake than he had last time. He felt better overall, in fact. Still not good, but at least he could take a shallow breath without feeling like he was about to cough up a lung. Which, based on his confused memories of the last time he'd had visitors, he had almost done at one point. “Hey,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Hi.” Lucy gave him a quick, anxious smile, sitting down and making sure the chair was close enough to his bed that he could reach out and touch Katie. Their little girl looked alert and happier than she had last time, which was good. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he said, relieved when the tickle in the back of his throat went away after one or two coughs. He didn't miss how she winced at them, though. He accepted the cup of water she handed him (expertly keeping Katie from grabbing it as she did so). Once he'd sipped some through the straw, he decided he would go ahead and ask. “Where's Jessica?”

She bit her lip for a second. “She asked one of our agents to drive her back to her car,” she told him. “She said she … she needed to get something, and then she'd be right back.”

It only took him a few seconds to figure out what that had to be referring to. He shut his eyes. Jessica wanted to divorce him. She apparently already had the papers drawn up. She was alive, she was real … but she didn't love him anymore. This was much, much worse than he ever could have imagined. Especially since her showing up like this had to be hurting her, and hurting Lucy.

“Wyatt,” said Lucy, her voice bringing him out of his dismayed thoughts, “I have some news. It's, um, it's an explanation for why you got so sick so fast.”

“Okay.” He looked at her. Judging by her expression and her voice, he wasn't going to like this.

“The only other time I've seen you even close to this sick was after you and Rufus were stuck in that dungeon,” she said. “When you were trapped. When I finally realized that similarity – which should have been sooner, I'm so sorry – I strengthened the protection spell I put on you. And you got better.”

He frowned. She was right, of course. This felt a lot like he'd felt when he was trapped in that cell, well over a year ago. Not that she should feel bad that she'd taken so long to figure it out, when it had never even occurred to him. “But what's trapping me?”

Lucy glanced at him, and then focused her attention on Katie who was currently chewing on the strap of her diaper bag. “This is the part that … that I'm not sure you want to hear.”

She sounded – God, she sounded almost scared. Wyatt put his hand on hers, where it was resting on the arm of the plastic chair. “Lucy,” he said, “please just tell me. Whatever it is.”

“I think-- I mean, I'm pretty sure the trap is the fact that you want to find some way of fixing this situation that doesn't involve hurting me, or hurting Jessica.” She took a breath. “I think you're feeling trapped between the wife who you never had the chance to resolve things with, and … me.”

He was stunned into silence for a good thirty seconds at least after that. Then he tried to gather his thoughts and keep his voice calm. “Are you saying I-- what, I won't get better until I sign those divorce papers Jessica's going to get?”

“Wyatt,” she breathed, and he could see the tears shining in her eyes. Katie let go of the strap and stared at her mother, looking worried.

Wyatt grimaced and let his head fall back against the pillow. He was already hurting her. This was intolerable. “How is she even here?” he asked, knowing she would hear how his voice shook just then. He coughed once.

“I don't know,” Lucy said, with a heavy sigh. “Emma can't access the Mothership anymore, or I'd assume she changed the timeline somehow, just to screw with us.”

That sounded like the kind of thing Emma would do, he thought with another frown. “But how is it even possible, even if the timeline did get messed with somehow?” He looked at Katie, his sweet daughter, and back at Lucy's face. “Because it makes no sense for Jess to be alive, for me to still be _married_ to her, in the same timeline as I have you and Katie.”

Something flashed across her face so quickly he didn't catch it. But she nodded and said, “Yeah, that's the other thing that happened while you were...” Swallowing hard, she went on, “Jessica volunteered to hold Katie for a little while, to give me a break, but when they touched each other it was like something shoved at the spells I set up to keep Katie safe from timeline changes. And both Jessica and Katie looked like ghosts afterward. It was-- it was pretty scary for all of us.”

It sounded terrifying. Wyatt wished he had been there, at least to help comfort some of the people he loved. But then he thought about the implications of what she was saying. “So. This whole situation – it _is_ a paradox.” Oddly, that realization brought him a little bit of relief.

“It is,” she said. “And, um, don't worry: Jessica and I have been careful to keep Katie away from her since that happened.”

Any relief vanished. That meant that even in the best possible outcome, if they somehow managed to figure this out, his wife – his first wife, the one who had been dead – could have no contact with his child, for their own safety. It would be a constant reminder of how this wasn't supposed to be possible. “Okay,” he said.

There was a period of silence, and then Katie started crying to let them both know she was bored with sitting in the chair with her mom. Lucy gave him a wry smile and stood up with their little one in her arms. “Are you trying to tell us you want to go?” she asked Katie. Katie had stopped crying when Lucy stood up, but she was still whimpering.

“Don't go,” said Wyatt, surprising himself and Lucy with the rawness of his tone. Lucy stopped. He found the lever that allowed him to raise the head of the bed further than it was already, and then he held out his arms. “Here. Let me take her, see if she'll stay for a little while.”

She hesitated. “Wyatt, you have an IV in your left hand, and that oxygen line...”

“I know,” he said. “We'll be careful, won't we, Katie?”

Katie gurgled and reached toward him. He could tell he'd won. Still, Lucy made sure to set their daughter down on his right side, gently pushing her hand away when the little girl immediately reached for his oxygen line. “See? Wyatt...”

Wyatt seized Katie's hands in his, smiling as she looked up at him. “I've got her. We'll be fine.”

And in fact, their baby girl seemed happy enough to play with the strings at the shoulder of his hospital gown – for a while, at least. For Wyatt, it was just so good to have his family here with him. He leaned over a bit so he could kiss the side of Katie's head. If only every little movement didn't keep making his chest tighten just enough to be noticeable, this would have been close to perfect.

When he looked up at Lucy, there were tears in her eyes again. But she gave him a watery smile. “Sorry,” she muttered, wiping her face quickly. She was so beautiful it made his heart hurt.

“Lucy,” he said, trying to maintain her gaze even as Katie went for the oxygen line again, “Lucy, there's something I need to say, before I get distracted or forget again.”

She came closer so she could help him corral their daughter. “Go ahead,” she said, as she bent down to the diaper bag and pulled out one of Katie's favorite toys. This time, the little girl decided to take it.

Wyatt took a breath – not too deep, since he didn't want to spark a coughing fit. “I don't have any regrets about choosing you, marrying you, Lucy. And I hope you know I didn't choose you just as a default because Jessica was gone, or because we were going to have a kid, or any other reason than because I love you.”

She stared at him, and a few more tears fell onto her cheeks. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed so she could lean in and kiss him. His lips were dry and probably really chapped at the moment, but she didn't seem to mind. “I do know,” she whispered, pulling away just in time to catch Katie's toy on its way to the floor. She cleared her throat. “I know that. But thank you for saying it, anyway.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. Katie filled part of the silence with her babbling, dropping her toy several more times just to watch her mother pick it back up. Wyatt wondered again, as he had many times before, just how much this child of theirs could understand of what was going on around her.

Then Lucy met his gaze, her own resolute. “I don't doubt your love for me, Wyatt,” she said. “And I hate that this situation is even happening to us – although obviously it's amazing that Jessica is alive and I would never want to change that. But we still need to … to figure out how we're going to get you well and out of this hospital bed.”

He nodded. The answer was obvious, but despite the truth of what he'd just told Lucy, he couldn't quite bring himself to say that. Instead, he just said, “I'll talk to Jessica as soon as she comes back.”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand. This time, since he was more aware of his surroundings and what was going on in general, he felt it when she used this moment to strengthen the protective spell on him. The distant, looming sensation of being trapped receded again. A reprieve.

~~  
Rufus and Jiya's arrival was a very welcome development for Lucy. In fact, she wasn't sure she realized just how close she was to a breakdown until Katie was in Uncle Rufus's arms, and she herself was being hugged by Jiya – and then the tears that had been threatening for hours now decided they weren't going to be held back any longer.

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” said Jiya, supporting her as they walked over and sat down in the waiting area when she started to sob. “Well, I guess that answers the question of how you're doing.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Lucy between breaths. She pulled out a tissue from her purse. Katie, she saw, was being distracted by Rufus flying her around the room with accompanying airplane noises. She was happy and giggling. Good. “It's just … it's been a really long, insane day.”

“You don't need to apologize,” Jiya said firmly. “Agent Christopher told us just a little bit of what happened, and I can't imagine holding it together as well as you have, if it were me.”

Lucy smiled and shook her head, wiping her eyes. It was a kind thing to say, but she knew Jiya would have handled it just as well, if not better. “Anyway. Um. Wyatt's all right, for the moment.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Is she still around? Agent Christopher, I mean?” Lucy asked, scanning the waiting area again (and very happy that Jessica wasn't back yet).

“I think she's somewhere around, yeah,” Jiya said. “Last I knew, she was on the phone with Connor trying to figure out how the timeline changed without the Mothership or Lifeboat being used.”

“That is the question of the day,” muttered Lucy.

Jiya gave her a sympathetic look. “Because Wyatt's ex – no, his first wife was supposed to have died in your original timeline, right?” She glanced toward the hospital room where Wyatt was sleeping. “'Insane' seems like a good word for that development.”

She couldn't argue with that. “I'm guessing you – and Rufus, to some extent – are dealing with the same thing Agent Christopher is regarding that paradox: you're kind of used to the idea of Jessica being alive and still married to Wyatt, but--”

“But at the same time, if we try to think about how that can be possible when you and Wyatt have been married for a year and have a kid, there's nothing there to explain it? Yeah.” Jiya sighed. “It's weird. But it can't be as weird as what you're going through.”

“Not that it's a competition,” Rufus chimed in, coming over to join them with a still-giggling Katie in his arms. “Because that would be a pretty messed-up competition.”

“Hm,” Lucy agreed. Katie let out a little shriek, and Jiya held out her arms. To Lucy's relief, the little girl accepted the offer, instead of deciding she needed her mother right at that exact moment.

Hardly had Jiya stood up to start walking around with Katie when Agent Christopher came back into the room. The expression on her face was not what Lucy would call reassuring. “Oh, good, you're all here,” she said. “Let's step into a more private room for this.”

And that was _definitely_ not reassuring. Still, Lucy got up and went with her friends and her daughter into a smaller room off the waiting area. “What is it?” she asked, as Jiya started to pace around with Katie.

“I've just been going over the transcripts of the latest interviews with-- your mother, to see if I could find anything relevant to how the timeline might have changed,” the agent replied, “and I came across something that's potentially very troubling.”

“Please don't drag this out,” said Rufus, unknowingly echoing the thoughts going through Lucy's head just then. “What's the latest bad news?”

Agent Christopher sighed and looked between Rufus and Lucy. “What year was Jessica Logan supposed to die in your original timeline?”

“2012, I think. Why?”

But she just asked for confirmation of Jessica's birth date next. When Rufus gave that (right, because he would have probably had to know that for sure, for the trip he and Wyatt had taken to try to stop her killer from being born), her expression grew even more grim. “Carol said in one of her statements a few weeks ago that Rittenhouse had a sleeper in Texas starting from shortly after when Jessica was born, who wasn't there about Wyatt. She didn't elaborate at that point. Given that, I wonder if it's possible for a Rittenhouse sleeper to be activated without a visit from the Mothership.”

Lucy felt a chill settle over her. “My God.” She glanced at Katie, still in Jiya's arms, and clenched her hands into fists. “Does that mean Jessica – this timeline's Jessica – is Rittenhouse?”

Rufus swore, then looked at his adopted niece and said, “Sorry. But I think we can all agree: that's really not good.”

“We don't know for sure she's Rittenhouse,” Agent Christopher cautioned, holding up a hand. “But you can be sure we're going to find out.”

“How?” Jiya asked with a frown. “If she is a recruit, or even if she's being forced to work with them against her will, the way the timeline is all in flux or whatever right now is going to make it really hard to find inconsistencies in her history and records.”

“We'll figure it out,” the agent replied, but Lucy interrupted, still focused on this terrifying possibility.

“And we can't just interrogate her, either,” she said. “She-- she might be innocent. Plus, if Wyatt found out...” She trailed off with a little gasp. How the hell were they supposed to tell Wyatt that his formerly-dead wife, the woman he'd tried so hard to save during their first months chasing Flynn in the Lifeboat, was possibly a traitor now? On the other hand, how could they even try to keep it from him? “We're going to have to tell him, anyway. _I'm_ going to have to tell him.”

“Lucy,” said Agent Christopher firmly, “there is absolutely no reason you need to be the one who tells Wyatt. I'll tell him. You can choose to be there when he hears the news, or not.”

There was a brief period of silence. Then another thought occurred to Lucy, and she swallowed hard. “I bet there's a spell that could be used to send a message back through time, to activate a sleeper.” She was thinking of the kind of spell she used to use for sending messages back and forth across the Boundary to Rufus, when she and Wyatt had still been in hiding. “It would take a lot of energy, a lot of power to mess with time like that, but Emma is a mage. She might be able to do something like that, with a lot of set-up and a very specific goal in mind.”

All the other adults in the room reacted with various expressions or exclamations of dismay. Katie was clearly picking up on those feelings, since she started to cry right away. Thankfully, it was the kind of crying that stopped as soon as she was back in her mother's arms. Lucy shushed her and pressed a kiss to her head. “Anyway,” she said. “We-- we should probably tell him before Jessica comes back.”

“I'll do that now. And in the meantime, I'll make sure my agents who are with her won't let her out of their sight.”

As Agent Christopher took out her phone to make that call, Lucy took a shuddering breath. This was all Wyatt needed right now. At least once he signed the divorce papers (which she really didn't doubt he would do), his Brightstar healing would have him out of the hospital soon. That was something.

~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I now have the year Jessica died correct (thanks to loyal reader Katy!). Purposefully being vague on other dates that I don't know. Heh.
> 
> And thanks for reading! Also, it would be great if NBC would just #RenewTimeless already...


	3. Chapter 3

~~  
Jessica didn't miss the stares from Wyatt's friends as she came through the doors of the hospital wing, folder of documents in her hand. They seemed suspicious, almost hostile. Which she supposed wasn't too surprising, since they would all have to be Lucy's friends, too. (Lucy, by the way, was sitting with her daughter in a far corner of the waiting area.)

But what she wasn't expecting was for their boss – a Homeland Security agent who somehow managed to be genuinely scary despite being pretty short – to walk up to her right away after she got inside. “Did you get what you needed?”

“I did, thanks,” Jessica replied, with an easy smile despite the woman's imposing attitude.

“Good,” said Agent Christopher. “I was wondering if I could have a word with you before you go in to see him.”

Jessica looked at the room where she knew Wyatt was, and then thought about what papers she was holding. “Uh, sure, I guess,” she said, “as long as he's … doing okay for the moment.”

“Yes, the doctor said he's doing fine right now. No worse,” said the agent. “Come on. Let's talk over here.”

As it turned out, Jessica didn't have to find out what it was Agent Christopher wanted to talk to her about – because right then, she got a phone call and stepped away. Whatever the news was, it wasn't good based on her expression as she listened. Eventually, she sighed and said, “Understood. I'm on my way.”

“Is everything all right?” Jessica asked, after the woman ended the call.

Agent Christopher gave her a hard look, which then changed into a bland smile. “Nothing to worry about. Uh, feel free to go talk to Wyatt. I'll see if work will let me come back and check on everyone later today.”

Jessica nodded. Then she took a breath, as Agent Christopher hurried off. She had an idea of what news the agent might have just gotten; on that topic, Emma would probably be contacting Jessica soon for an update. So that meant she should really get a move-on with this next step.

She was relieved to find Wyatt awake and alert when she opened his door. “Hey,” she said, shutting it behind her. “You look better.”

“Hey.” He gave her a smile, though she saw his eyes travel to the folder in her hands more than once. “Thanks. Yeah, I'm feeling better, for now.”

“For now?” That was a weirdly pessimistic thing for him to say. She came and sat down in the chair next to his bed.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Um, this whole Brightstar claustrophobia thing would cause huge problems during missions if we didn't do anything about it, so Lucy has a spell she put on me years ago. It protects me and keeps the effects at bay. So once she knew what was wrong, she reapplied it.”

That was interesting. “I see,” she said. “Good. But it's not permanent.”

“Well, it can last as long as she wants, as long as she remembers to keep doing it,” he told her. He swallowed then, looking at the folder that was now in her lap.

“Ah.” It was her turn to clear her throat. “It's not a solution, is what you're saying. Not to this particular trap. We need something else to solve it.”

Wyatt dropped his gaze to his hands and sighed. “Jess, I-- I don't want you to think that I think of this – of you being here – as something terrible. And I don't want to have to say goodbye after I just got you back, either.”

“I'm not planning to disappear off the face of the earth, you know,” she said gently. When he gave her a brief, horrified look, she winced. Given the effects of the work he did, that wasn't as ridiculous of a fear for him as it would be for literally almost everyone else. “Sorry. Still trying to get used to this whole time travel thing. It's messing with my head.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I get that.”

“Anyway,” she said, after a pause, “I know you don't think it's terrible that I'm here. But I also know you know the simplest way to solve this problem. And you know it's been a long time coming – or maybe you don't, I guess.” She sighed. This Wyatt hadn't seen her in six years. He would have no way of knowing how their marriage had been crumbling this whole time. That had definitely come from both of them, not just her.

But he didn't look surprised, at least. “Maybe not the exact details, but I can guess,” he said quietly. “I wasn't a good husband before you died in my original timeline, either.”

Jessica bit her lip. This wasn't supposed to have been hard. This morning, she'd had righteous anger on her side as she planned to hand the papers to her secretive, moody, stubborn, drunken, volatile husband who wasn't willing to commit to fixing their relationship. Now, though, she was dealing with a whole new Wyatt. She steeled herself. There was still the mission. And even without that fact, there was no better option here. “Are you going to sign them?” she asked, opening the folder.

Wyatt didn't answer right away. He looked at her, then looked toward the door (toward his family), and then down at his hands again. Then he coughed once. “I need to ask you something first.”

“Okay.” She wasn't sure what to expect. “Go for it.”

“It's-- it might seem strange, but I hope you'll bear with me for a few minutes.”

“A few minutes?” Her eyebrows rose. “What exactly did you want to ask me that's going to take that long?”

He acknowledged her point with a quirk of his mouth, though it faded quickly back to seriousness. “It's just, I haven't had time – _we_ haven't had time to try to wrap our minds around the fact that … that we're not the same people to each other. I mean, I knew a different Jessica, and you knew a different Wyatt. Hell, there are probably significant differences from even before we met in our timelines.”

Jessica nodded slowly. “That's true, I guess.” Where was he going with this? Was he planning to try to get to know her now, before signing the papers? That would take a hell of a lot of time, which hardly seemed fair to Lucy, or their kid – which in turn made it seem out of character for any version of this man. “So, do you want my life story, or what?”

Sighing, he shook his head. Then he squared his shoulders. “What I want to know is what you know about Rittenhouse.”

“What?” Now that was strange. She had half expected some questions like this to come up, and she'd meant to flat-out say she had no idea what he was talking about. She tried again, relieved that she could at least make herself look as confused as she wanted. “What are you talking about?”

He was watching her very closely. “Rittenhouse. What do you know about them?”

She needed to get him off this topic. This was really weird and disconcerting. Why couldn't she just straight-up lie and tell him she knew nothing? It was hardly the first time she had needed to hide the truth from him. “Wyatt, can we just get this over with?” she said with a frustrated sigh that she didn't have to pretend for. “I don't understand why you're stalling – especially not with all these weird questions.”

There. That looked like it was working better. He looked uncertain, and maybe even guilty. A second later, gaze dropping away from hers again (and wasn't it bizarre how much of a relief that was, like she was suddenly out of the line of fire?), he held out a hand. “Fine. Give me the papers.”

_Thank God._ Jessica passed them over, and fished out a pen to give him as well. He took both things, but as he skimmed over the papers, she could see his brow crease. He met her gaze. “I'll sign,” he said, with that stubborn edge she knew so well, “when you answer my question. It shouldn't be hard, Jess – if you really don't know what I'm talking about when I say Rittenhouse.”

“What the hell?” Jessica stood up, allowing believable anger to propel her away from that accusing (no, it wasn't even accusing, and yet...) gaze. “Jesus, Wyatt, what do you want from me? I'm trying to get you out of this. I'm trying to make it so you're not sick anymore, and so you can be with Lucy and _your daughter_ without breaking laws against bigamy!”

She was getting too loud. She was about to start attracting attention from a doctor, or maybe Lucy or one of their friends. Jessica took a deep breath. She wished she had some idea of why this was so much harder than it should have been. There was no way Lucy could have cast a spell on her, was there?

“Fine,” said Wyatt, after a long pause. His face was pale, but his eyes were clear and hard. “I guess that's a good enough answer, anyway.” With that, he signed his name on all the relevant parts of the divorce paperwork, then pushed the papers and pen back toward her, coughing once or twice as he did so. “You have what you wanted. You can get out of here now.”

Jessica took them. Something had gone wrong here, and she didn't like that she couldn't explain what it was exactly, or how it had happened. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I'll make sure it officially goes through as soon as possible.”

Her soon-to-be-ex-husband lay back against his pillow, apparently exhausted. “Yeah.” He shut his eyes, and she didn't feel him watching her at all as she left his room.

Even as distracted as she was by whatever the hell had just happened, Jessica couldn't fail to notice the way Lucy and the others stared at her when she left Wyatt's room. She could definitely feel the hostility now. But she did her best to ignore it. “Okay. Well, this is a little awkward, but Wyatt should start feeling better now, and I'd like to get this to the judge right away. So...”

“So you need a post office,” said Rufus, into the very strained silence that fell after she trailed off.

“I guess that would do the trick, yeah.” She held up the papers in a sort of salute. “Anyway. I'd say it was nice to see you all again, but since you've never actually seen this timeline's version of me before today, that's not really accurate.” She really needed to get out of here. Emma was waiting for an update, for one thing, and she herself wanted to hear how Emma's mission had gone.

None of them spoke as she headed toward the doors of the medical wing. However, Jessica's hopes of getting out of there quickly took a sharp dive when one of the Homeland Security agents near the doors moved in front of her as she got close. “I'm sorry, ma'am,” he said, “but I have orders from Agent Christopher to keep you here for the time being.”

“What?” Jessica knew she was getting loud again, but decided she didn't care. “Why?”

“I can't share any details, ma'am, but it's a matter of security,” the agent replied. “If you'd like, I can take those papers for you and make sure they get where they need to go.”

Sighing, Jessica handed them over. “Fine.” It wasn't like she had a choice whether or not to stay right now, unless she wanted to try to fight her way out of the building. Which would tend to increase any suspicions they might have. “Any chance you could tell me how long I'm going to be stuck here?”

“I'm afraid not,” he said, looking ever so slightly sorry to tell her this. “Someone will update you and the others when something changes, though.”

“Thanks,” she muttered. And now she had to find out whether she was going to be allowed to make a private call, or if she'd be required to have an escort for that. If she had to, she knew she could talk in code to Emma, but it would be a lot more effort. Pasting on a smile, she looked at the Homeland Security guy again. “Is it all right if I step into another room to make a call, so I can tell my friend I was supposed to be meeting that I'll have to take a rain check?”

“Certainly, ma'am.” But it wasn't going to be that easy, of course. He nodded to another agent, who directed her toward the room she could use and then walked with her. _Fine. Speaking in code it is._

~~  
Lucy watched Jessica and the nameless Homeland Security agent (she felt a little bad about not knowing his name, but he wasn't part of her and Wyatt's usual escort so she guessed she had an excuse at least) walk into one of the adjoining rooms. She tried to relax her hands, which had been twisted together in her lap ever since the woman had gone into Wyatt's room some time ago. They had all heard some words that sounded a lot like they had been yelled – by a female voice – not too long before Jessica had come back out with the signed divorce papers. No one had been able to distinguish the words, though, which was just fine. And at least Katie had slept through it all. The nurses had found her a bassinet, which was a godsend.

It had been a fair amount of time since she and Agent Christopher had first broken the news to Wyatt that his formerly-dead wife might be a Rittenhouse agent in this timeline. Plenty of things had happened since then. But Lucy still couldn't get the image out of her mind of Wyatt's heartbroken face after he had heard about this possibility. She needed to know how his conversation with Jessica had gone. She needed to know if Wyatt was okay.

“Jiya,” she said. “Rufus. Can you watch Katie for a little while? I don't want to wake her up, but I need to talk to Wyatt.”

The other two looked at each other, and then nodded almost in unison. “Yeah,” said Jiya. “Yeah, of course. Go for it. We'll keep an eye on Katie.”

“Just let us know how Wyatt's doing, okay?” added Rufus.

“I will.” She gave them a shaky smile. “Thanks.”

As she headed toward his room, she saw Dr. Greenville approaching as well. “Mrs. Logan,” he greeted her. “I was just coming to check up on our patient.”

“Oh. That's a good idea,” Lucy said. It hadn't really sunk in yet, but with Wyatt having signed the papers, there was a good possibility he wouldn't need to stay in his hospital bed much longer. Or anyway, that was what they all hoped. “He, uh, isn't trapped anymore, so he might be doing a lot better.”

“Well, that would be excellent news,” said the man brightly. “Why don't we find out?” With that, he knocked on Wyatt's door and then entered, with Lucy behind him.

Lucy was relieved to see Wyatt sitting up and looking healthier than he had since before Jessica's arrival outside their apartment building. Not happy, but she wasn't expecting happy. He answered the doctor's query by reporting that he felt great, that he could breathe deeply without any discomfort or tightness, and that he'd really like to get the drains out of his lungs.

Dr. Greenville smiled. “That sounds very promising, Mr. Logan. We'll do another check-up right away, and if everything sounds and looks as good as we all want it to, then getting those out will be the next item of business.”

Which would mean they would have to put him under again, Lucy realized. “Can I, um, have a minute to talk to him before you get to that part?” she asked.

“Of course,” said the doctor. “Let me just do a quick examination, and I'll give you two some privacy.”

He listened to Wyatt's breathing with a stethoscope, checked his pulse, and then pronounced him all but perfectly healthy. He removed the oxygen line. “I'd say this was a miraculously fast recovery,” he went on, “but given your particular fae heritage, I suppose it's normal for you. Still. It's amazing to me.”

Neither Wyatt nor Lucy were really sure how to reply to that, other than to nod and smile. Once Dr. Greenville had left, Lucy took his hand. “So,” she said, “you signed the papers. How did the talk go?”

“It was … illuminating,” he said, clenching his jaw. Then he blinked and looked toward the door. “Where's Katie?”

“Napping. Rufus and Jiya are watching her.” When he nodded, she pressed her question. “Illuminating how?”

“I asked her point-blank what she knew about Rittenhouse. She wouldn't give me a straight answer.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “She didn't just deny she knew anything?”

“I think she wanted to,” he told her, looking faintly puzzled at this. “But she didn't. She just got mad at me for pushing.”

That did sound pretty damning. Also confusing, since a Rittenhouse agent should be able to lie better than that. But then... “Ah.”

“What?” He gave her a weird look. Then it seemed to dawn on him a second later. “Oh. Right. That whole thing.”

“Yeah.” It was extremely hard to lie to a Brightstar. That fact had helped them out on their missions more than once. But for Wyatt to have had a need to make use of this with his soon-to-be-ex-wife … she was sure that was going to weigh on him for a long while. “So she couldn't lie to you. Do we-- I mean, that doesn't mean for sure that she's Rittenhouse. Maybe she just...”

“No, Lucy.” He shook his head, giving her a sad smile and tightening his grip on her hand. “Don't. She showed up out of the blue in a way that doesn't make any sense without some kind of change to the timeline. Plus, we know now that Rittenhouse had someone on the ground in our hometown in Texas. Then she tried to manipulate me into dropping the Rittenhouse question. I don't know anything about this timeline's version of Jessica – except that she's not my wife. She never was, not really. And now I also know that I don't – I can't – trust her.”

“Well...” She sighed and trailed off. There was really nothing else to be said. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah.” He scoffed and gestured at the hospital room around them. “Me, too.”

That was troubling. That made it sound like Wyatt was taking at least some of the blame for this on himself, which of course was not accurate at all. “Wyatt,” she started to say.

There was a knock on the door right then. Instead of the doctor coming back in, though, it was another Homeland Security agent. “Excuse me. Mrs. Logan, you have a phone call,” the man said. “It's Agent Christopher.” He was holding her phone, which she must have left out in her bag.

“Oh, thanks.” Lucy took the phone. Hopefully it hadn't woken up Katie when it rang, she thought. “I'll be right back, Wyatt.”

He nodded to her, as she stepped outside and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Lucy.” Something about Agent Christopher's tone made Lucy stop in her tracks. “I'm so sorry, but I have some terrible news. As near as we can figure it, it seems Emma was somehow able to break into the facility where your mother was being held. She managed to slip poison into your mother's lunch.”

Lucy fought to breathe. “Are-- are you saying she's dead?”

“I'm afraid so. She died within minutes. The people on duty tried to save her, but there was nothing they could do.”

There was a ringing sound in her ears. Lucy staggered but made herself stay upright until she collapsed into the nearest chair – which happened to be across the room from Jiya, Rufus, and Katie. But she couldn't look at them right now. “And Emma?”

Agent Christopher sounded incredibly angry, and for just a moment Lucy felt a tiny hint of pity for whoever it was who was responsible for security at that holding facility. “She escaped. One of my agents shot her on her way out, but it was apparently only a minor injury.”

And now Lucy was furious, too. That was easier than letting herself feel anything else right now. “Okay. Well. Thanks for telling me.”

“Lucy--”

But she had already hung up. Carol Preston was dead. Her mother. Lucy hadn't had the chance to see her since a few days after she was arrested. She supposed she should be grateful for that last chance. They had almost been cordial to each other. Her mother had asked after Katie, with real, genuine care. She had apologized for the terror her granddaughter had endured, and for the pain Lucy and Wyatt had gone through as well – though she had stopped short of claiming all of the responsibility for the kidnapping.

“I never, ever wanted you or Katie to have to go through that,” she had said, leaning forward across the table toward Lucy. “I understand if you can never forgive me.”

Lucy hadn't been able to come up with anything to say in response to that. Just coming to the holding facility to see her mother had been hard enough. Wyatt hadn't wanted her to go, but the choice had been hers and he hadn't really tried to stop her. And she had felt like she would regret it if she didn't at least see what her mom had to say.

“I hope that, when this is all over, you can at least begin to understand what Rittenhouse is to me,” her mom had gone on, “or what it should be. And then someday, maybe you'll take what belongs to you, and make that vision of Rittenhouse into reality.”

Those had been the last words her mother would ever speak to her, she realized: some ridiculous wishes that her pureblood daughter would continue the Rittenhouse legacy. That would be her last memory of her – in this timeline. And Katie would never even have the option of getting to know her grandmother, if they could have ever reached the point where that was in the cards.

“Lucy?”

She looked up. Jiya was standing in front of her, looking worried. “What?”

“Was that Agent Christopher on the phone? What did she have to say?”

Lucy blinked, and glanced over at Rufus. Katie was still asleep in the bassinet next to him. “Emma somehow managed to sneak past all the armed guards at the holding facility where my mother was, fatally poison her food, and then sneak back out.” Her fists were clenched, Lucy noticed, and she was breathing hard. “And she got shot in the process, but she's still alive. Like a goddamn _cockroach_ that just won't die!”

Her voice was getting loud, but she'd at least succeeded in not waking up her child. Rufus and Jiya were both staring at her, though.

“My God,” said Rufus, after a pause. “Your mom... I'm so sorry, Lucy.”

Lucy nodded once, not really looking at them but more sort of past them. She wondered dully if this was going to be it – her final straw. Her sister had disappeared from history, her mother and father were both part of a shadowy conspiracy, her mother had lied to her about her Rittyn House elvish heritage her whole life, her daughter had been kidnapped, her husband driven into a severe health crisis... And now this.

Speaking of Wyatt, it looked like the doctors were getting ready to start the procedure to remove the drains in his lungs. That was fine. Lucy didn't feel like it was necessary for him to hear about this latest disaster right before surgery. One trauma at a time was enough.

~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a bit short, but I wanted to get another chapter posted before too much more than a month went by.


	4. Chapter 4

~~  
So, Carol Preston was dead. Jessica sighed as she put her phone away. She wasn't sure how to feel about that. Sure, she knew the woman had turned traitor at the end, after that confrontation with Wyatt and Lucy at the headquarters a few months ago. But Carol had also been Jessica's mentor, ever since Rittenhouse first took an interest in her. Insanely enough, Jessica might know – have known – this Carol even better than Lucy had in this timeline.

And the other piece of news she'd learned from her coded conversation with Emma had been both a relief and an unwelcome shock. Apparently, it wasn't surprising at all that she hadn't been able to lie to Wyatt – this Wyatt, anyway.

“Yeah, I guess I could have warned you,” Emma had said, when Jessica used code as best she could to describe what had happened. She hadn't really sounded that regretful, though. “Since he's a Brightstar now, it's damn near impossible to lie to his face. No reflection on your skills. But it's probably a good thing you don't have to pretend to be in love with him anymore, since he'd see right through it.”

Jessica ignored the tiny twinge of … something, that wanted to protest that she hadn't always been pretending. That wasn't important right now. Instead, she let Emma know she didn't appreciate being blindsided, and then ended the call soon after that.

Jessica took a moment to gather herself, and then glanced at her Homeland Security guy. “I think I'd like to go back out to the main waiting area,” she announced.

“Certainly, ma'am,” said the agent. He opened the door for her, and accompanied her out to where the others were waiting.

And then Jessica noticed the mood of everyone out there. Lucy was staring into space, face carefully blank. Everyone else was tense and obviously unhappy. “Um,” she said, clearing her throat, “did something happen? Is Wyatt okay?”

“Wyatt's fine,” said Jiya, after a pause in which Lucy looked at Jessica briefly but didn't say anything. “It's just … Lucy got some bad news. About her mom.”

Ah. Of course. Jessica made sure she looked sympathetic. “Oh, really? I'm sorry to hear that.”

At that, Lucy looked up at her again, and Jessica was pretty sure she hadn't imagined the flash of anger there. But she still didn't reply.

The atmosphere of the waiting area stayed just about like that for the next half hour or so. Jessica found herself getting bored, despite the hostility she could almost feel coming from Lucy (she had decided to sit on the same side of the room as her, but not too close). The only interruption came when Katie woke up for a little bit, fussing until Lucy got her to go back to sleep.

And then a few minutes after the half-hour mark, the doctor came out to tell them that Wyatt was in recovery after having the drains in his lungs removed, and that he was doing well. That was good news. Jessica was still trying not to think too much about how terrifying it had been to watch Wyatt in that hospital bed, almost literally coughing up his lungs right in front of her.

But before enough time had passed after that announcement for anyone to visit Wyatt in recovery, Agent Christopher came back into the building. Not just Agent Christopher, actually – a whole group of men and women in suits. Jessica had a very bad feeling about the way Christopher was looking at her right now. She tried to surreptitiously reach for her phone to send the panic code she and Emma had set up.

“Ms. Logan,” said the agent, coming to a stop in front of Jessica's chair as the others cut off any possible escape, “would you please come with me? I have some questions I'd like to ask you.”

Jessica stood up slowly, her phone in her hand. “About what? Am I-- am I under arrest, or something?” She thought she'd gotten the right mixture of confusion, innocence, and fear there.

Wyatt's boss was about to respond, but she was interrupted by a sharp command from Lucy.

“Stop.”

At first, Jessica had no idea why Lucy would be ordering Agent Christopher around. But then she realized – her own hand was frozen. The hand she had been trying to use to signal Emma. She looked at Lucy, aware she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding her genuine fear now.

“Lucy?” said Agent Christopher, raising an eyebrow as she followed Jessica's gaze. “Would you care to explain what's going on?”

“She's doing something with her phone,” said Lucy. For a second, she looked unsure, but then her expression hardened. “Given the fact that you want to question her, I'm assuming you have more evidence that she's Rittenhouse. So it seems like a good idea to make sure she can't contact anyone right now. Emma, for instance.”

“I-- I don't know what you mean by that,” Jessica tried to say, but she trailed off when one of the other agents took her phone ( _now_ she could move her hand – now that it was too late). She tried again, “I don't know what Rittenhouse is. Wyatt was talking about it earlier, but I'd never heard of it--”

“Save it for our private chat,” said Agent Christopher. “If you'll come with me, that is. And to answer your earlier question, no, you're not under arrest.”

That was a tiny relief. Except for the fact that Homeland Security could detain people for as long as they wanted, Jessica was pretty sure. This was not going well for her. Plus, she had no particular reason to hope that Emma would learn about this development. Emma had other things to worry about right now, too, so even if she did find out, she might very well not intervene.

Jessica sighed, nodding her compliance to Agent Christopher as she allowed herself to be led to whatever room was going to serve as an interrogation room. While it was true that her being here was continuing to distract Lucy, Wyatt, and the rest from other things they could be doing, she still didn't exactly feel like _she_ was able to do her best work for Rittenhouse while she was stuck across a table from Agent Christopher.

~~  
It was probably a good thing that Katie woke up for real, just a few minutes after Agent Christopher and the other Homeland agents led Jessica away. That meant Lucy had something – someone – else to focus on, instead of her grief and anger over her mother's death, and her fury at Jessica's betrayal. (Her alleged betrayal, she supposed she should say.)

At least Katie had woken up mostly cheerful this time. She'd had a good long nap, which usually helped her mood. “Hi, baby girl,” said Lucy, kissing her forehead and then setting her on her lap. “You slept well, didn't you?”

Katie gurgled and beamed at her, which never failed to make Lucy smile back.

“Daddy's doing well,” Lucy told her. “So maybe we can get out of here and go home soon. That'll be nice, right, sweetheart?”

If she understood, Katie showed no sign of it. Instead, she propelled herself closer to her mother, so she could then try to hold onto Lucy's shirt and pull herself upright. It almost worked – though she did accidentally pull on Lucy's hair in the process. “Ouch.”

“Has she picked up any new words lately?” asked Jiya, sitting down in the chair next to them.

“You mean, since you saw her last week?” Lucy made sure Jiya could tell she wasn't annoyed with her for asking, despite the mood she'd been in after Agent Christopher's call. “No, not really. She's still pretty much just got 'Da' and 'Mama', and 'hi' and 'bye-bye'.” Lucy was still glad, as she had been ever since moving back to the human world, to have Jiya, Michelle, and Agent Christopher to discuss these kinds of development milestones with. Of course, she had once dreamed of talking about each one with her mom...

Katie immediately waved her hand to say goodbye, and Jiya laughed. “I'm not going anywhere at this exact moment, little one.”

“Hopefully soon, though,” Rufus put in, coming over to sit on Lucy's other side. “For everyone except Jessica, I guess.”

Lucy clenched her jaw, but then made herself relax. She had to be here for her daughter right now, not mentally in the room with Jessica and Agent Christopher. Even though the temptation was strong, to do something like she'd done when Mason was kidnapped and she had searched for him with her magic.

“I wonder what Agent Christopher found on her,” Jiya said quietly.

That was only part of the reason Lucy wished she could listen in on the interrogation (if that was what it really was going to be). Another part of her wanted to be doing the interrogating.

But then, before she could pursue that line of thought (or try to stop), Lucy felt the strangest sensation. It was like she was suddenly watching herself from outside her body, as well as still experiencing everything from where she should be. And somehow that meant she could see something coming. For her. It didn't feel threatening, exactly, but it was powerful.

“Jiya,” she said, and it was harder than she wanted for her to be able to speak, “could you take Katie please? Just for a...”

Her friend did so, but now she was looking at Lucy in concern. “Are you okay? Lucy?”

And then Lucy snapped back to herself, just in time to be hit with what she quickly realized was a crazy huge load of information. No, not just information; there were also what had to be memories mixed in there, too, and now Lucy saw that a lot of the knowledge was specifically about magic and spells.

But she couldn't do anything else while all this knowledge was streaming into her mind. She just had to sit there, trying to absorb it all. She was aware, sort of, that she was gripping the arms of the chair she was sitting in so tightly that her hands had to hurt. But she didn't feel the pain, if so. She also couldn't really see anything right now, and she definitely couldn't hear anything.

Finally, as the flood of information and images began to slow, Lucy's mind had more of a hope of organizing everything she'd been getting. That was when she started to see the commonalities and perspective of the source of all of this. Some of the memories, after all, were of a younger, more innocent Lucy. The source was her mother. Her mother had somehow passed all of this down to her, even after Emma had murdered her.

She blinked, and it was like her ears popped and everything else came back into focus. Jiya was standing in front of her, eyes wide and Katie still in her arms, while Rufus sat back from how he had been leaning close to her. His relief when she looked at him was obvious.

“Hey. Can you hear us now?” Rufus asked. “It-- it almost looked like you were having a Jiya-style vision there. But a super long one.”

“Really?” Lucy blinked again. Katie turned her head and reached for her, so Lucy took her back. “How long was I – um...?”

“Long enough that I was about to go find a doctor,” said Jiya. “I mean, you weren't having a seizure, exactly, but it did not look good.”

Holding onto Katie with one arm, Lucy rubbed her hand across her forehead. Her head still felt odd.

“So, any ideas what it was?” Jiya asked, when she didn't speak right away. “Do I need to get a doctor, anyway?”

“No, I don't think so,” said Lucy. She sighed. “I think it was... I think it was a final gift, sort of, from my mom. Like an inheritance.”

Both Rufus and Jiya raised their eyebrows. “Okay. What kind of gift?” Rufus wanted to know.

She almost smiled as she thought about it. “The most perfectly 'my mother' gift I can think of, really. Based on what I just learned, it's a thing that a lot of pureblood women mages in Rittyn House did. They found a way to gather all their relevant knowledge and useful memories that they accumulated during their lifetimes, magically package it up, and make it so that it would be passed on to their closest living blood relative when they died. So my mom carried on that tradition.”

There was a pause, and then Jiya said, “Wow. Passing down personal history over generations. That's … actually almost cool. Except for the whole Rittenhouse aspect of it, and the fact that I'm guessing she didn't warn you it was going to happen, so you didn't have a choice about getting all that just then.”

“Nope, she definitely didn't warn me,” Lucy agreed with yet another sigh. Her amusement faded. “So her last act on this earth could still be seen as a way to indoctrinate me into my family's evil cult heritage.”

“Well, even if she'll never know otherwise,” said Rufus, “maybe you can take some small amount of comfort in the fact that she won't ever succeed.”

At that, Lucy reached out and took his hand, feeling like she might actually tear up at his sincerity. “Thanks, Rufus.”

He squeezed her hand back and then let it go. And then Katie reached for him, too, and he laughed as he picked her up. “What can I say? The ladies love me.”

Jiya elbowed him, but then sat down in her seat next to Lucy again. “But besides Rufus's point – which is a good one, and stop looking so smug--” (this, naturally, was directed toward Rufus) “--I bet you've already thought about the fact that this new info she gave you could be--”

“Really useful in taking down what's left of Rittenhouse?” Lucy nodded. There was some very relevant and potentially urgent stuff in there, in fact. It was just going to be hard to sort through all of it. “I mean, apparently my mother didn't think there was much important about Jessica's role, which is too bad, since there's only some memories of them interacting. Nothing earth-shattering there, though I guess that counts as proof Jessica knows about Rittenhouse.” Then she stopped, and allowed herself to let out what was probably a pretty malicious laugh. “Oh. Guys, Emma doesn't know about this. It's only for pureblood Rittenhouse women. She doesn't know that her attempt to silence my mother just backfired in about as complete of a way as you could imagine.”

After a second, both Rufus and Jiya looked delighted. “I cannot wait to see her face the next time she jumps, and we're actually several steps ahead of her for once!” crowed Rufus.

“Yeah, maybe we'll even--” Jiya stopped, shaking her head. “Man, I never used to be superstitious at all, but now it really does feel like I'll jinx something if I say, 'Maybe because of this, we might even be able to finish this soon.'”

Lucy and Rufus were quiet at that, until Katie broke the silence by shrieking and grabbing her uncle Rufus's ear. He winced and gently moved her hand. “Ow.”

As she helped him keep her little girl from causing any more (mostly) unintentional harm, Lucy continued to think about Jiya's words. It was too soon to say that her mom's parting gift was enough to bring them all the way to that goal, but from what she had started to process, it would help them get a lot closer, at least. Rittenhouse would be that much closer to finally defeated. And then, once they were gone, she and Wyatt could do what Flynn and his wife and daughter were doing now: just live, just have as much of a normal life as any of them could have after their experiences.

They had all been there when the Time Team plus Flynn got back to the present, after Rittenhouse was (they thought) all but defeated and Flynn had been allowed to take his trip back to save his family. Lucy didn't think she'd ever forget the look on his face when he stepped out of the Lifeboat and saw Lorena and Iris waiting for him. And now they were together. Sure, Flynn was on basically permanent house arrest, required to check in with Agent Christopher once a week, but he was with his family. They had a life together. It was a tantalizing picture. In fact, it made her heart ache, thinking about how much she wanted it. She knew Jiya and Rufus, and Agent Christopher, and even Mason all wanted it, too.

~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, sorry about the whole two-month wait thing. This chapter's a bit shorter than some, but it should set up the last chapter well.
> 
> Thanks again for reading along!


	5. Chapter 5

~~  
Despite having been assured by his doctor that the whole procedure of removing the drains plus his post-op recovery had only taken about four hours, Wyatt still felt like he'd managed to miss a hell of a lot during that time. First of all, his soon-to-be-ex had been taken in for questioning, and was currently in a room somewhere facing off against Agent Christopher. Second – or wait, this had actually happened first – Lucy's mother had been murdered. Even though the woman was supposed to have been safe in custody. And third, Lucy herself had apparently gotten some kind of download of Rittenhouse info from her mother, _after_ her death – because that was a Rittyn House tradition among its pureblood women. With his brain still a little fogged from coming off the anesthesia, he wasn't sure he had understood that correctly. If anyone could.

“So what kinds of stuff did she tell you? Or send you, or whatever the right word is,” he said. At the moment, he was allowing Agent Harrison to push him in the wheelchair the nurses had supplied, while Lucy walked alongside him and a delighted Katie rode in his lap. This arrangement with Katie was only going to work as long as he kept her far enough away from his incision sites, he knew – quick Brightstar healing or not.

Next to him him, Lucy let out a dry chuckle. “I don't know what the right word is. But, um, it was all kinds of stuff: key moments in her life, locations that are-- or were important to Rittenhouse, memories...” She trailed off. “I've already started writing it all down, so I can try to put it in some kind of order.”

Of course she had. Wyatt smiled a little. He wondered if she'd started a new notebook for that, or if she'd used the back of some piece of paper she had in her bag.

When they got to one of the waiting black SUVs, Wyatt was relieved to find that he could stand up to get in. It made his incision sites twinge, but he could do it. He and Lucy had already been told that he should take it easy as far as lifting things until he was healed, though, so she had taken Katie out of his lap before he stood.

“So,” said Lucy quietly, after their security escort started the car, “how are you feeling? About … everything?”

“You mean about Jessica.”

Lucy shrugged but didn't deny it. Meanwhile, Katie was busy looking out the window, or trying to stick her fingers in the gap between the window and the door. Wyatt wasn't sure which.

He focused on Lucy's question. Honestly, Wyatt wasn't sure how to feel, knowing his sort-of wife was in the process of being interrogated by his boss right now. It wasn't that he was surprised that Agent Christopher had found more evidence of Jessica's guilt – not after his last conversation with her. It was more that... He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I don't know. I mean, I haven't exactly had much time to just sit and try to deal with her showing up, alive. Not to mention finding out she's--” He swallowed. “Finding out she's not the woman I knew.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was sad.

Wyatt thought about Carol Preston. There were similarities there, but this was Lucy's _mother_ , not just someone she'd met as a teenager and fallen in love with. “I'm so sorry about your mom,” he told her. “I know she wasn't the mom you grew up with, but...”

Lucy turned her gaze toward their daughter as she nodded once. After a pause, she said, “She's going to grow up without any grandparents.”

That thought sent a pang through Wyatt. His grandparents, especially his grandpa, had been the reason he made it through childhood. As for Lucy, technically, Benjamin Cahill was alive as far as they knew, but there wasn't a chance in hell that man would ever have any interactions with Katie. And if his own father had still been alive... Wyatt suppressed his simultaneous shudder and flood of rage at that mental image. Instead, he thought of what Katie would have, that he'd never had growing up. “That's true,” he said, “but she'll have her Uncle Rufus and Aunt Jiya, and maybe Denise and Michelle will agree to be called her grandmas. Mason could be a grandpa.” Then he snorted. “Hell, if he's interested in staying in touch, Katie could even have an Uncle Flynn who's a Wer.”

At that, Lucy gave him a look, eyes wide. “Was that-- did I just hear Wyatt Logan volunteering to at least potentially willingly spend time with Garcia Flynn at some point?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, rolling his own eyes. Then he grew serious. “But I mean, he helped us get Katie back. He fought alongside us. So … that means something.”

Lucy's grip on Katie's arm tightened convulsively, and he knew she was remembering their shared terror when Rittenhouse had kidnapped their little girl. “It does,” she agreed. “And I know she's going to have plenty of family around. And we can go visit all your Brightstar relatives any time. I just...”

“I know,” said Wyatt. This was still not something they could just forget easily. He leaned over and caressed Katie's back, and then grinned at her when she turned to coo at him in response. For the hundredth time or more since Katie was born, he wondered what could possibly have warped his father's mind, his heart, to keep him from showing love to his son. There was nothing in the universe that could keep Wyatt from showering his love on Katie. It didn't make sense. Just like it didn't make sense that any mother wouldn't be so proud to have a daughter like Lucy – the way she was, not the way anyone else wanted her to be.

“Well, anyway,” Lucy said with a heavy sigh, “at least my mother's last act should help us be able to have a little closer to normal lives. As normal as we can get.”

Wyatt snorted again. “Yeah, I'll take that level of normal.”

~~  
They ended up ordering takeout for dinner. Not only were neither of them up for cooking (Lucy had a few meals that she could make reliably now, though she had to stick to the script every time), but Lucy needed to spend some time writing down the details from her mother's parting gift while it was still fresh. Although it also didn't seem like it was going to fade away anytime soon. Probably part of the spell, Lucy reflected.

They hadn't gotten any calls from Agent Christopher yet, but then it didn't seem super likely that they'd be her first call after finishing with her interrogation of Jessica. Lucy hoped not, anyway. That just didn't seem like it could be a good thing. At any rate, she was relieved that none of the information she was writing down from her mother required the team to jump into action. She did, of course, send everything relevant she recalled to Agent Christopher as soon as she'd finished writing it.

After dinner, Lucy was cleaning up and putting the leftovers in the fridge. Wyatt was out in the living room entertaining their daughter, who was showing no signs as of yet that she was ready for bed. He was speaking quietly, but Lucy could still hear him from in the kitchen.

“Can you show me your nose?” There was a pause, and she could hear the smile in his voice as he said, “That's my girl! Now how about your … ears?”

Lucy couldn't have kept the smile off her own face if she'd tried, as he went on with the little game they'd both been playing with Katie recently. Their little girl definitely knew a lot of words, even if her spoken vocabulary was still pretty limited.

“Okay, how about this one, Katie?” Wyatt went on. “Can you show me your wings?”

Lucy stepped out into the doorway between the kitchen and the living room in time to see Katie – who was wearing one of her specially-made, Brightstar-appropriate onesies – spread her little wings while staring raptly at her father. Wyatt was sitting a couple of feet away from her on the floor. He had his own wings extended as well, and he was beaming at her. Lucy wished she had a camera or her phone handy.

“That's right!” Wyatt said. “High five!”

Giggling, Katie held up a hand for Wyatt to touch with his. Then she slapped his palm a few more times, and waved her other hand at his wings. “Da!”

“Yep, Daddy has wings, too,” he agreed. He hadn't looked up yet, so Lucy was pretty sure he hadn't seen that she was there. “Mommy doesn't, but you know what she has?”

Katie babbled a short reply, and then lurched forward into Wyatt's lap. He laughed, catching her easily and scooping her closer. “Mommy has magic, for one thing. She's what's called a mage – a really strong one. But she has a lot of other things Daddy doesn't have, too.”

“Oh?” said Lucy, deciding she might as well join her family on the carpet in front of the couch. “And what might those things be?”

He moved over so that he could lean against the couch, with Katie still in his lap, and gestured for her to sit next to him. “Well, for starters, she has a PhD and she's fluent in French.”

“Keep going,” said Lucy, accepting his invitation. Seeing her, Katie reached out, and Lucy took her into her lap.

Wyatt leaned over to kiss Lucy's head. “She also has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of history,” he went on, only sort of bothering to pretend he was still telling Katie this. “You could almost call her a nerd about it, in fact.”

Lucy elbowed him. “You were doing so well for a while.”

Katie making a break for it and crawling toward the kitchen distracted them both for the next few minutes. But once their little girl was back in front of them and occupied with one of her toy cars, Wyatt sat back down next to Lucy and said, “That wasn't the end of the list, you know.”

“Okay,” said Lucy. She was curious to know what else he had in mind. It didn't usually bother her too much, knowing that she was the only member of their little family that wasn't a Brightstar, but that didn't mean she wasn't interested to hear this. “Then please, go on.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and gently pulled her closer. “The main other thing I was going to say was, Katie's mom has the biggest, most compassionate heart of anyone I've ever met. She always sees the best in people.”

Lucy cleared her throat around the lump that had appeared there at his completely sincere words. Sometimes, Wyatt knew exactly what she needed to hear and when. She sniffed and took his hand.

Her husband wove his fingers through hers. “Plus, she's the most selfless person I know,” he said, his tone tender and admiring. “So really, she's a Brightstar in every aspect that's important.”

She gave him a watery laugh and then pulled his face closer so she could kiss him. He was more than willing to join in, she discovered quickly. But a few seconds later she pulled back enough to tell him, “Just so you know, as happy as I am that you know about your heritage, I didn't need that revelation to know what kind of a man you are.”

Before Wyatt had a chance to do more than give her a look loaded with emotion in response, Katie captured both of their attention by letting out a loud, happy cry. They looked up. She had abandoned her toy cars and crawled over to the end table. From there, she must have pulled herself upright, holding onto the edge of the table. She was standing.

That in and of itself wasn't new. Their little girl had been pulling herself to a standing position for the past month or so. But now she let go of the table, turned herself around without falling, and then grabbed onto the edge again. She was facing her parents now, and smiling at them wide enough to show off her few teeth.

“Wow, baby girl,” said Lucy, sitting up and beaming at Katie. “You're such a big girl, staying on your feet like that!”

“Next thing you know, she'll be walking,” said Wyatt. He sounded proud as he leaned forward and held out his hands. “Isn't that right, kiddo?”

Sticking the hand that wasn't holding the edge of the table into her mouth, Katie gurgled and looked at both of them. Then she let go, and took a shaky step forward...

And promptly fell forward onto the carpet. Her expression of surprise was adorable, until it turned to tears.

“Hey, hey, it's all right,” said Lucy, hurrying to scoop her daughter into her arms. “Did that scare you, sweetheart?” Katie was still crying, but at least her volume hadn't increased.

Wyatt gently took one of Katie's hands and turned it over so he could look at her palm. “Oh, it's a little red. That must have hurt.” He bent down and kissed it. “But you're going to get better really fast, okay, baby? I promise.”

Katie whimpered, but didn't seem to want to keep crying. Instead, she turned over her other palm and held it up for Lucy to look at. Obligingly, Lucy kissed it. “There. Better?”

“Ma,” said Katie, blinking and then yawning.

“Well, you're not wrong,” said Wyatt. “It _is_ about time for a certain little girl to get ready for bed.” Then he yawned, looked sheepish, and muttered, “Maybe for a certain daddy, too.”

“A certain dad who's had what some people might call a crazy day,” Lucy pointed out. So crazy, in fact, that there'd been a significant part of it where no one had been sure he'd make it through the other side.

Wyatt must have caught something flash across her face at that thought, because he asked if she was okay. Lucy shook her head. “Let's just get Katie to bed,” she said.

Much later, when Katie was sleeping in her crib, and she and Wyatt were starting to get ready for bed, Wyatt broke the comfortable silence that had fallen. He spit out his toothpaste, rinsed his mouth, and then sighed, leaning against the bathroom counter. Lucy was pretty sure he was waiting for her, so she finished up with her own toothbrush and turned to face him, raising her eyebrows in invitation.

“Do you think Jessica – this version of Jessica – meant for-- everything that happened today to happen?”

Her eyes widened. Now that was a huge question. Lucy bit her lip and thought back to the moment they'd first seen Jessica, to Wyatt's collapse, to the discovery of the paradox while they were at the hospital. Lucy wasn't as good at seeing through deception as Wyatt was, but she wasn't bad at it, either. “I don't think so,” she told him eventually. “I mean, I think she knew more than she let on at first, about us, and about … you. But I really believe she didn't know about Katie, and she didn't intend for you to end up needing to be rushed to the hospital.”

Wyatt nodded once. She hated to see the lingering pain on his face. “And she wasn't trying to hurt Katie?”

“No.” Of that, Lucy was almost one hundred percent sure. “I mean, I'm not sure it'd even be possible for her to try, since the paradox hurt her almost as much as it hurt Katie. But still.”

“Still.” He sighed again, staring down at his hands on the counter. “I'm sorry, Lucy.”

She blinked. “Sorry for what?”

“Emma must have sent Jessica to distract us, to distract _me_ , while she went and...”

_Oh._ Of course. Real malicious intent toward their family or not, Jessica had been a very effective distraction. Even Agent Christopher had been drawn in, which had left Carol Preston that much more vulnerable. And of course Wyatt would see that as his fault, somehow.

“That's not your fault,” Lucy told him, her voice soft but unwavering. “You don't have to apologize.”

“But Jessica--”

“You aren't responsible for what this timeline's version of Jessica decides to do,” she cut him off. She stepped closer, forcing him to look up at her. “And you don't need to feel guilty for how you reacted to seeing the woman you thought was your dead wife appearing in front of you, alive, either.” She put her hands on his face. “You wouldn't be _you_ if that hadn't affected you strongly, Wyatt. You always look for the best in people, too – especially the people you love.”

He searched her gaze for a few seconds, and then turned his head so he could kiss her palm, like he had done for Katie not long ago. “There you go again,” he said afterward, his expression clear.

“What?”

He pulled her into his arms. “Just that you're proving my point. You save my life at least as often, if not more often than I save you.”

“Well, I don't know about that,” said Lucy softly. “I mean, we're both pretty good at saving each other by this point.” He chuckled, acknowledging her point.

They stepped back by mutual consent, and then it was Wyatt's turn to put his hands on her face, just for a few seconds. “You know, it feels like we might actually be near the end of this. We might actually stop Emma for good.”

It still felt a little risky to think that, much less say it. But then Lucy thought about a few of the key pieces of information her mother had given her: locations, a few time periods where there were still sleepers waiting to be activated, and the remnants of the roadmap she and Emma and the others had meant to follow to reach their goals. She took a deep breath. “I think we could,” she agreed. “Together.”

“I wouldn't be anywhere else.”

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this fic 'til the end!
> 
> I'd love to write more for this universe if the inspiration comes my way - which it might after the Timeless Movie, if not before.


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